


Playing Pretend

by Alis_Wonderland



Series: The Secret [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Guardian Angel!Stiles, Sheriff Stilinski Knows, Stiles Has Secrets, Stiles Stilinski Doesn't Know About Werewolves, Stiles secretly helps the pack, but doesn't think Stiles knows, except that he totally does, for his own protection, the pack tries to keep Stiles in the dark, they don't know that he knows everything that is going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:52:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8422576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alis_Wonderland/pseuds/Alis_Wonderland
Summary: AU where the Sheriff is the one who finds out Scott got bit by a werewolf, instead of Stiles. He and the others try to keep Stiles in the dark so he won't get involved. The thing is that Stiles has his own secrets they don't even have a clue about.





	

It was rather funny really.

  
People thinking they could hide anything from him.

  
Ha, as if some things would go unnoticed by him. This was Stiles Stilinski they were dealing  
with. Not much could really get past him...Ok, so sure, there were some times when things did,  
but he found out about them eventually. The point was that it was an avoidable thing people  
would just have to accept. No matter how much they tried to keep something in the down low, it  
would eventually come to light.

  
That was why Stiles found it somewhat funny that his dad and Scott thought they could keep the  
secret of werewolves unknown to him.

  
Pfft, who were they trying to kid. Practically everyone in Beacon Hills knew something wasn’t  
normal about their little town. It’s just that many would rather deny this knowledge in favor of some  
nightmare-free sleep, and pretending their chances of making it to the next day would be  
high.

  
“Fools, as if that will stop death from coming”, Stiles thought to himself most days as he  
observed the town’s population from on top of abandoned buildings. Today, he was swinging his  
dangling feet from the balcony of an old condemned three story building.

  
No one would come looking for him here, what normal teenage boy would hang out in  
condemned buildings. ‘Normal’, that was what his father thought. Ha, don’t make him laugh,  
normalcy was never part of Stiles’s dictionary. And it would never be.

  
He could play pretend and act like the good little normal teen his dad wanted him to be, but that  
was all it would ever be. An act. A really well played act, if Stiles were to add.

   
He was sure his dad thought he was at home right now, doing his homework like a good little  
boy would. Obeying his father’s and his friends’ wishes. But, as previously stated, Stiles didn’t  
do normal. Nor was he much for obedience. And, he wasn’t little anymore. He had grown up a  
long time ago, but his father didn’t want to accept that. In the sheriff’s eyes, he would always be  
a little boy. That was why Mr. Stilinski had thought it was a good idea to keep lycanthropy a  
secret from the teen, wanting to keep his son safe and away from danger.

  
Stiles understood that, he really did, but it was for that same reason that he was out on the  
balcony of an abandoned factory at this moment. Looking down at the pack of werewolves plus  
one sheriff, one banshee, and two Argent hunters confronting an invading supernatural threat in  
the industrial side of town, the pack looking like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.  
Stiles hated to admit it, but dear God, were they pathetic.

  
They had no sense of attack strategy other than the rather idiotic ‘attack and evade’ routine.  
Stiles had seen on many occasions his dad or Chris Argent telling them to follow certain  
practiced strategies, but the wolves had all but forgotten them in the heat of the fight.

  
“What a bunch of puppies”, Stiles mused.

  
In the pack’s defense, they were all rather young (besides Peter, Chris, and the Sheriff), most  
of them being teenagers like himself, but Stiles thought they would have learned more by now.

  
He somewhat blamed his friend, Philippe LeChat, for his attitude towards canines and their  
related kin. Philippe, who was a cat familiar for a local witch and occasional pranking partner of  
Stiles, had a rather big distaste for canines. Stiles summed it having to do something with the  
guy being partly feline, but it could also simply be because Phil was an asshole to basically  
everyone. There had been numerous times since the two had met that Phil had expressed his  
displeasure for Stiles’s insistence of helping out the pack of werewolves unbeknownst to them.

  
Much like his master, whom none of the pack knew was a witch or they would be annoying her  
constantly for help (and she hoped they never found out about her for that same reason), the  
cat familiar didn’t understand why Stiles would help someone who didn’t want the teen to be  
involved, though he agreed they were a rather pathetic bunch that could use any help they  
could get.

  
The pack wouldn’t have even known what the latest big bad was, if Stiles hadn’t secretly used  
his magic to make the ‘wind’ blow the pages in Lydia’s book to the right page. The banshee  
hadn’t even thought about the possibility of having a secret helper, and was given credit for the  
findings. It bugged Stiles a little that his help went unacknowledged, but with his involvement  
being secret and all, Stiles could live with that…for now.

  
Another thing that made Stiles tick, was Derek, the self-sacrificing martyr. Stiles and Phil had  
stopped keeping track of the number of times they had to save the idiot from premature death.

  
Whether it being by ‘The Force’, as Stiles liked to jokingly call it, to cause the grumpy werewolf  
to be moved slightly to the left to avoid the fatal attack he could have gotten, or causing parts of  
a building to collapse on unsuspecting villains. Stiles had never met a guy with such a major  
death wish as this dude.

  
If it were up to Stiles, he would make sure the sourwolf would be firmly wrapped in bubble wrap  
and stuck in a room filled with pillows. Seriously, why was this guy always getting hurt? He  
seemed to know how to fight, and yet his ass was always getting handed to him.

  
Not much different from the rest of the pack really.

  
So yes, Stiles thought, puppies, the lot of them.

  
After every fight, Stiles would usually stick around unseen, merging and becoming one with the  
shadows. Eavesdropping on the pack and their adorable little pack meetings. They were mostly  
pointless, always being about the same thing. Such as cheering for surviving another day in this  
hellhole of a town and making plans to hangout out after school. Stiles simply stayed to be up to  
date, seeing as spying on people was the only way to get information. Sometimes, much to his  
surprise, the pack would talk about Stiles and how they should maybe include him or at least tell  
him about the supernatural dangers lurking about. The sheriff would always quickly forbid it,  
saying Stiles would want to engage in battle against enemies if the teen knew. Stiles would  
shrug, nodding his head from his hiding spot. It was true that would be what Stiles would do,  
having every intention of protecting people. But still, it angered Stiles because he felt he should  
have been told about things.

  
He didn’t like that his father was risking his life running with wolves, but shouldn’t Stiles be  
allowed to do the same if that is what he wanted? He would have just as much to lose if  
something were to happen to his dad -not that anything would because Stiles was acting as his  
secret protector- and it didn’t settle right with Stiles not being allowed to have his dad’s back in a  
battle. That was why he watched over the pack all the time.

  
What got to him all the time, was that his dad thought he could protect his son from the horrors  
of the world. A vision the man was sadly mistaken on. Life had a way of doing things like that.

  
Being cruel and rather ironic at times.

  
It had been the same night Scott had gotten bitten and the sheriff had found out, that Stiles’s  
world was turned upside down... At least Stiles thought it had been on the same night, so much  
happened in that time frame that it seemed like days had passed in seconds. Besides, time was  
a rather confusing concept to him nowadays.

  
For you see, the night of Scott’s wolf incident, Stiles died.

  
Yes ladies and gentlemen, Stiles Stilinski: master of sarcasm and lover of curly fries, died that  
 night.

  
Cause of death: being at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

  
Or if specifics were wanted, it happened after he been caught by his father and the police in the  
woods when he thought looking for a dead body with Scott had been a peachy idea. He had been  
escorted to his jeep by one of his dad's deputies and told to go straight home while the sheriff,  
not believing Stiles had been alone, went to find if Scott was in the woods. The thing was, Stiles  
never made it home. Somehow on his way home to await his dad's punishment, he managed to  
find himself right in the spot and time that a herd of some sort of creature had popped up from  
the side of the road.

  
It wasn’t delightful to say the least, suddenly blacking out and waking up in an admittedly  
beautiful meadow…finding out he just died, not even realizing how exactly it had happened.

  
After much freaking out and realizing panic attacks were still possible in Heaven- Holy shit, he  
was actually in Heaven! The Heaven!- someone eventually appeared by his side to snap him  
back to his senses via slap to the face, which you’d think wouldn’t hurt since he was already  
dead and all, but you’d be surprised.

  
It was then explained to him, that yes he was indeed dead, but he wouldn’t be for long.

  
Apparently, it hadn’t been his time yet and some angels were promptly trying to send him back  
before the higher angels could find out about the mistake that had been made. Evidently, they were  
caught red-handed and the higher angels decided to formulate a way to make this work to their  
advantage. Which led to Stiles’s life changing forever…well second chance at life or whatever.

  
Time seemed to have no effect in Heaven with every hour looking the same, and soon it  
seemed as if many days had passed by since Stiles ‘died’. He wondered if his dad knew what  
had happened to him. Was the older man drinking himself away to ease the pain of missing his  
son? Stiles had dreaded the thought, but all the worrying ended when he was able to find out  
how to go back home.

  
No one noticed Stiles had even been gone when he did. To them, only a few minutes had gone  
by, even though it had been hours to Stiles.

  
He was even more surprised to find that his beloved jeep was not even totaled like he thought it  
would. Heck, it even seemed to be in better condition than it had been in years.

  
Putting his worry for Roscoe aside, waking up again very much alive in the very spot he had  
died in, was very confusing to the teen at first. But then again, so was waking up to realize he  
was now a living angel. Heart pumping like any normal person, and having the ability to pass for  
one most of the time, but at the same time, having heavenly powers.

  
A guardian angel was what he now was, looking out for the citizens of a town known for  
attracting unwanted supernatural attention.

  
It wasn’t a bad gig really, he got to look out for his pops and the others this way. Plus, he wasn’t  
the only living angel in town. As it turned out, none other than Loved-By-Everyone-Danny was  
one as well. (Stiles always thought the guy was too sweet to be human.)

  
Seeing that no one would believe his tale of his adventures in the world of the heavenly  
deceased, Stiles planned to act as if nothing had happened. Even though, he could never be  
exactly like the spastic teen he was before. Many things had changed, but not all were bad. Like  
the fun fact that he was apparently now magic due to his heavenly revival. He had planned on  
telling his dad, having found out about Scott and the other werewolves by having learnt to sense  
other supernatural creatures with his newfound angel mojo. 

  
That idea went out the window when he realized just how much the sheriff was doing to make  
sure Stiles stayed out of the supernatural mess of the town (well, that combined with Danny’s  
nagging about not spilling the beans). It frustrated him that the sheriff couldn’t be completely  
honest to his son, yet expected Stiles to be an open book, and so Stiles decided to feign  
ignorance. If that was how his dad was going to act, then so was he. Two could play that game,  
though only one of them knew everything that was going on, and Stiles planned to keep it that  
way until his dad caved in first.

  
His mom sweetly called the two Stilinski men “stubborn fools” every time Stiles went back to  
heaven for a quick visit (another one of the perks of being an angel). She was always one of the  
people who gave Stiles the best advice when he needed it. He wished he could tell his father of  
how his mom was fine and happily watching over them from Heaven, but Claudia would always  
tell her son that there was a time and place for everything, and the moment was not right now.  
One piece of advice she had given him was to still talk to his father and Scott in friendly terms,  
despite that Stiles was furious at first because his best friend, his brother who he shared every  
secret with no matter what, and the sheriff had agree to keep something so big from him.

  
Claudia had reasoned that Stiles shouldn't hold it against his father or the teen wolf for trying to  
protect him the best way they knew. She made a point to say that Stiles would have probably  
done the same in their place, and Stiles signed in defeat, his anger deflating some.

  
So in the end, he was willing to hang out with Scott and the young werewolf’s new friends,  
acting as if they were all normal human beings. It wasn’t like he was faking liking them as well  
as faking being normal…though Jackson was always testing his patience.

  
He was willing to not question his dad on his constant ‘late shifts’.

  
He was willing to pretend that things were normal.

  
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get secretly involved in things.

  
If the pack somehow 'magically' managed to figure out what they were dealing with that week,  
good for them.

  
If the latest threat to Beacon Hills were to 'magically' disappear before they caused anything, no  
one but Stiles (and possibly Danny, for bragging purposes) needed to know.

  
…And if Jackson were to push him against a locker for no reason one day, who was Stiles to  
deny him the ‘karma’ he deserved. Whether it be Jackson losing his balance and falling into a  
trash can, or it being the douchebag’s beloved Porsche getting mysteriously scratched. Stiles  
just knew he would have front row seats to the major hissy fit show, with a bag of popcorn in his  
hand.

  
Stiles admitted it, he may now be an angel, but he was one who had the tendency of losing his  
halo, mainly for pranking. It's not like the higher powers minded, as long as he didn’t go  
overboard.

  
Granted, living with secrets wasn’t always the easiest thing for Stiles.

  
The pack would frequently make up lame excuses to ditch him in order to talk about pack stuff.   
Stiles found it rather annoying at times. He didn’t like being left alone during lunch sometimes,  
only for the pack to get back to him later and mouth apologies he didn’t really care to hear.

  
Sometimes, he would rather just spend his lunch time at the school library, reading a leather  
bound book in Latin.

  
That was a thing now, Latin. 

  
As was French, Japanese, Spanish, German, and a handful of other languages.

  
For you see, when a person who was now not as human as he once was, and could now  
summon portals on command into a place without time, there were endless possibilities.

  
Sometimes, when Stiles would grow lonely of having no one to share his secrets with, and  
Danny was nowhere in sight, he would happily disappear to visit his mom in heaven. It had sort  
of become a second home to him. Time having no affect in heaven, he wouldn’t age if he spent  
a lot of time there. He could get so many things done that were time consuming, and it was  
awesome.

  
Got lots of homework and forgot that it’s due in an hour? No problem, go do it in the relaxing  
meadows of Heaven (though his mom wouldn't be too pleased with having a procrastinator as a  
son) and then head back to the mortal world later.

  
Want to learn a new language, but don’t have enough time for it? You could do that too.

  
Want to take out your anger on something, but don’t want to accidently hurt someone with your  
newfound powers? Sadly, there’s no violence allowed in heaven and most angels would simply  
say to let go of anger and be peaceful...Though there are always the warrior angels who are up  
for teaching you some fighting skills (and beating the crap out of you as 'training').

  
Anyway, for once, time seemed to be on Stiles’s side, though it was getting to the point where  
he didn’t know what to do with himself at school. He basically knew everything that was being  
taught in all of his classes, due to all his available time to study, and it was getting hard for him  
to pay attention to the teachers. He thought of graduating early, but what was the rush? He  
literally had all the time in the world…well in one world at least.

  
He supposed that was one of the reasons he meddled in the pack’s stuff or hung out with other  
supernatural beings like Philippe LeChat and his witch, Iris. Boredom and curiosity were still  
things Stiles experienced, though not the same amounts as before.

  
Spying on people was always more fun than staying at home alone and bored. 

  
So that was why he sat on the balcony of an abandoned building at the moment, swinging his  
legs over the edge and reading in Latin. Every so often looking down at the pack to make they  
weren’t sucking too bad at fighting a group of imps. Making bets with the black cat perched next  
to him, whose eyes glowed an unnatural lime green. Swaying his tail in annoyance of smelling  
the scent of wolf in the air, yet staying to watch the drama alongside the angel.

  
Maybe one day, the pack would find out what Stiles has been doing for them. But for now, he  
would continue to play pretend.

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to go back to the summary-like type of writing style that I used in the earlier installments of this series. I find it much easier to write when I don't have to deal with how I'm going to write in the dialogue, so I might do other works in a similar way. But, I don't know if people are okay with this style, so please tell me what you think :)
> 
> Random fact: I was originally going to write in one of my OCs instead of Philippe LeChat, but I found it hard to explain what exactly he is in a small amount words because I didn't want this to be a long story, so I wrote in LeChat instead. And for those who don't know who he is or don't remember him from Supernatural, LeChat is a cat familiar who only appeared in one episode, but instantly wormed his way into my heart (he constantly messed with Dean, who is allergic to cats).   
> Note (mainly to myself): I hope to be able to introduce my mentioned OC someday because in my opinion, he could make things interesting (lol, of course I think that since he's my precious creation. Who knows what you guys would think of him, though). I got this storyline in my head that I really want to write that deals with TW season 6, but lately I haven't had much time since I finally got a job (you have no idea how many interviews I have gone through before finally getting something). Anyway, with TW starting again soon and Stiles not really being there this season, I probably be more motivated to write and hopefully I'll be able to write this storyline. (I can't give many details as to what could happen since IDK when I will start writing it and I don't want to leave people hanging, but I can say that if I do write it, it focuses on Stiles and what he is up to while the pack are trying to remember him.)


End file.
